Announcement (2017-05-07): www.ruby-forum.com is now read-only since I
unfortunately do not have the time to support and maintain the forum any
more. Please see rubyonrails.org/community and ruby-lang.org/en/community
for other Rails- und Ruby-related community platforms.

I jut noticed this example in the lucene documentation*:
title:(+return +"pink panther")
I have been using this syntax:
+title:(return AND "pink panther")
Seemingly with success. Are both acceptable? I couldn't find any
documentation on "the plus sign" itself.
Thanks for any pointers.
John
*http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/queryparsersynt...
20operators

On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 06:42:16PM -0400, John B. wrote:
> I jut noticed this example in the lucene documentation*:>> title:(+return +"pink panther")>> I have been using this syntax:>> +title:(return AND "pink panther")>> Seemingly with success. Are both acceptable? I couldn't find any> documentation on "the plus sign" itself.
the plus sign marks a required clause in a query. A document can only be
a hit if it matches that clause. The opposite of this is the minus sign,
documents that match such a clause can't be a hit. Internally, Ferret
doesn't handle AND and such, they get translated by the query parser,
i.e. 'a AND b' --> '+a +b'
Clauses without + or - are optional 'nice to have' clauses, they will
raise a document's score if they match, but the doc won't be excluded
from the hits if they don't. So 'a OR b' gets transformed into 'a b'.
Jens
--
Jens Krämer
webit! Gesellschaft für neue Medien mbH
Schnorrstraße 76 | 01069 Dresden
Telefon +49 351 46766-0 | Telefax +49 351 46766-66
removed_email_address@domain.invalid | www.webit.de
Amtsgericht Dresden | HRB 15422
GF Sven Haubold, Hagen Malessa

On Mar 30, 2007, at 3:32 AM, Jens K. wrote:
> from the hits if they don't. So 'a OR b' gets transformed into 'a b'.
Thanks for that, I actually was completely unaware of the case
without + or -. Very nice.
However, my question was actually more simple: are the semantics of
these two bit of a query the same?
title:(+return +"pink panther")
+title:(return AND "pink panther")
Thanks,
John

On Mar 31, 2007, at 1:18 AM, John Joseph B. wrote:
>> Clauses without + or - are optional 'nice to have' clauses, they will>> title:(+return +"pink panther")>> +title:(return AND "pink panther")
I replied to this the other day, but I think my sending address was
incorrect and it didn't go through - sorry 'bout that. My reply was
this:
-----
Yup, both are acceptable. An "AND" actually affects both sides and
forces them to be required, as if you had used + in front. + is
documented in the document you referenced, just below AND.
If you are combining the queries above with other clauses they may
not be equivalent due to the +title, but if these are the full
queries they are equivalent (at least in Java Lucene).
Erik